Unionists have blasted Sinn Fein “hypocrisy” after the party leadership held a private meeting with Prince Charles just one day after Michelle O’Neill said she would never stop attending IRA commemorations.

During his tour of the island of Ireland, the Prince of Wales also shook hands with former IRA bomber and Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly.

Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald , The Prince of Wales and 'Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O'Neill at a private meeting in Cork, as part of his tour of the Republic of Ireland

That event in Belfast took place 24 hours before Mr Kelly led a Sinn Fein delegation to meet the Parades Commission, calling on a new Orange lodge to withdraw their application for a parade through what the party said is a mixed area of north Belfast.

Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie said Sinn Fein’s “gesture politics” were meaningless until the party flatly condemns the IRA’s campaign of violence during the Troubles.

The Upper Bann MLA told the News Letter: “If republicans are trying to spin this by saying they are reaching out to unionists then they are well wide of the mark, because their actions don’t meet their words.

“As long as they continue to commemorate the murderous IRA who butchered men, women, and children, then these stunts amount to nothing.”

Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald and vice-president Mrs O’Neill held a 30-minute meeting with Prince Charles during his visit to Cork on Thursday.

Speaking after the meeting, Ms McDonald said it was “an opportunity to extend the hand of friendship not just to Prince Charles or to the British Royal family but to those on our island who identify as British and who are British”.

On Wednesday, Mrs O’Neill said she did not foresee a day when she would stop attending IRA commemoration events.

“We all have a right to remember our dead. I will never fail to stand beside a mother who has lost her child in the conflict,” she told the Belfast Telegraph.

And while Mr Beattie said he did not disagree with Sinn Fein’s Stormont leader on that point, he added: “These commemoration events glorify and romanticise terrorism.

“If I as a political representative went to a commemoration of a UVF man for killing Catholics, people would be rightly outraged.

“So Sinn Fein need to understand why unionists, and indeed some nationalists, are outraged when they go and commemorate terrorists in this way.”